The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed the Jawaharlal Nehru University administration’s plea seeking police protection for its officials during protests at the varsity. The bench also asked the Delhi Police to stay out of the campus unless it had proof of law and order trouble or had been called in by the administration for help, PTI reported.

“They are students, not criminals,” Justice Vibhu Bakhru said, also ordering students to restrict their protests to the Sabarmati Hostel lawns, which the JNU has alloted for agitations. The court also asked students to not stage demonstrations within a 100-m radius of the administrative block.

The JNU management had filed the petition alleging that protesting students did not allow officials to enter the administrative block, which has a number of offices including the vice chancellor’s. It approached the Delhi High Court after students launched another agitation against the university’s decision to cut the number of seats for MPhil and PhD courses.